Star Wars, Marvel, ‘One Piece’ Are Top-Ranked Entertainment Franchises of 2023 to Date, Fandom Study Finds

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor MoffettNathanson, a leading Wall Street research outfit covering the media and communications sectors, is once again an independent entity. In December 2021, SVB Financial Group acquired New York-based MoffettNathanson, which was founded in 2013 by analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson. In March of this year, Silicon Valley Bank — part of SVB Financial Group — collapsed after a run on its assets, leading the parent company to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Don’t be alarmed: The U.S. government on Oct. 4 will be conducting a test — only a test — of the emergency alert systems that span the nation’s millions of wireless phones, TVs and radios.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor After just more than a year at Netflix booting up the streamer’s ad business, Jeremi Gorman is leaving the company. Amy Reinhard, previously VP of studio operations, will succeed Gorman as president of advertising. The change comes as Netflix announced two other notable C-suite appointments Tuesday, promoting Eunice Kim to chief product officer and Elizabeth Stone to CTO.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor If you’re piggybacking on someone else’s Disney+ account, you may soon have to pay up to access the streamer. The Mouse House has notified Disney+ subscribers in Canada that as of Nov. 1, “Unless otherwise permitted by your service tier, you may not share your subscription outside of your household.” The notification also informs customers that if the company has determined that a Disney+ subscriber has violated those terms, “we may limit or terminate access to the service and/or take any other steps as permitted by this agreement.” The language suggests that Disney+ will be offering a new option (or options) for account-sharing outside a primary user’s household.

Michaela Zee “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” director Gareth Edwards is once again addressing the multiple reports about the 2016 film requiring extensive reshoots overseen by Tony Gilroy (the eventual “Andor” creator was hired by Lucasfilm to join the “Rogue One” team in June 2016). On a recent episode of KCRW’s “The Business” podcast, Edwards claimed “there is so much inaccuracy” surrounding the making of the “Star Wars” prequel.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Letterboxd has been acquired by Tiny, a Canadian holding company, in a deal that values the popular social site for film fanatics at over $50 million. Letterboxd was founded in 2011 by two entrepreneurs in New Zealand, Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow.

Suits is on its way to breaking another Nielsen streaming record.

So, filmmaker Gareth Edwards is doing the interview round for his latest sci-fi extravaganza, “The Creator,” starring John David Washington. It’s a movie heavily indebted to “Blade Runner,” “Apocalypse Now,” and even “Star Wars” (read our review here).

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took a (virtual) trip to the Upside Down to pitch his company’s latest effort to make virtual and augmented reality a thing. The company on Wednesday announced the Meta Quest 3 mixed-reality headset, set to ship Oct.

The stars of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins have opened up about working with politician Matt Hancock on the show, with instructor Rudy Reyes revealing "everybody doesn't like the guy". This year's series sees the likes of singer Gareth Gates, model Danielle Lloyd, TOWIE's James 'Arg' Argent and Olympic athlete Perri Shakes-Drayton tackle the ultimate Channel 4 challenge, although fans were shocked to learn that Matt Hancock - the Health Secretary during the COVID-19 pandemic - was also taking part. It seems the public weren't the only ones with reservations, with contestant and footballer Jermaine Pennant admitting that he had to leave his feelings about Matt and his political career at the door.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and its sequel Survivor, has confirmed the existence of a third game in the series.In a panel at this year’s Ocala Comic Con in Florida, Monaghan said that things are moving and shaking on the third Star Wars Jedi game. However, it doesn’t appear that production has started based on his statement.“We’re in the process of doing that right now.

Thania Garcia Newly reunited NSYNC kept it real for their episode of the YouTube series “Hot Ones” — their first official interview since surprising the world with an appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards earlier this month. Chris Kirkpatrick, JC Chasez, Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass and Joey Fatone assembled around a table to eat the show’s unbearably hot chicken wings while host Sean Evans asked them about some of their most memorable pop culture moments.

He’s captivated our imaginations with iconic monsters and futuristic space battles, using a symphony of light, scale, sound, and mastery over visual effects. Oh, and he really knows how to make Darth Vader scary.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor OpenAI’s ChatGPT is the target of a major new lawsuit, alleging the company illegally copied the copyrighted works of authors to train the artificial-intelligence robot. Led by the Authors Guild, a New York-based professional organization for published writers, a group of 17 writers, including George R.R. Martin, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, George Saunders and Jonathan Franzen, joined the proposed class-action lawsuit against OpenAI.

Gareth Edwards directed his first movie, the 2010 indie “Monsters,” it could scarcely have been a more DIY endeavor. He had less than $500,000 to tell an intimate story about two Americans contending with giant aliens rampaging through Mexico, so his crew consisted of just his actors (Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able), a sound tech, a line producer, a translator and a driver.

The force remains strong with Star Wars, which beat out Marvel as the top franchise in a new survey of U.S. and UK gaming and entertainment fans by online community and data firm Fandom.

EastEnders star Jessie Wallace has played the iconic role of Kat Slater for over two decades and has been at the heart of some pretty dramatic storylines over the years, along with her signature leopard print style. Jessie, 51, has starred on the hit BBC soap on and off since 2000 when she arrived on Albert Square with her three sisters Lynne, Little Mo and Zoe. Some of her greatest storylines include the infamous baby swap scandal, the shocking revelation that Zoe was actually her daughter and the breakdown and make up of her relationship with Alfie Moon.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The two Hollywood strikes that have ground TV and film productions to a standstill are bad for business — and Warner Bros. Discovery is working diligently to resolve them as quickly as possible, according to CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels. “It’s an unfortunate situation… We have to get back to work,” Wiedenfels said, speaking Thursday at the Bank of America Media, Communications and Entertainment Conference.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The SEC charged a company called Stoner Cats 2 LLC — which produced an animated web series “Stoner Cats” funded by sales of NFTs that were priced at $800 each — with conducting an unregistered offering of crypto asset securities. The NFT sale of the Stoner Cats in July 2021 raised approximately $8 million to finance “Stoner Cats.” The voice cast of the “Stoner Cats” series included Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis, Chris Rock, Dax Shepard, Gary Vaynerchuk, Jane Fonda, Michael Bublé, Seth MacFarlane and Vitalik Buterin.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor After 11 years, Apple is bidding adieu to the Lightning connector on its flagship iPhones. The company announced the iPhone 15 at its annual fall product launch event, held Tuesday at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters. The new models will feature USB-C charging ports, scrapping the company’s proprietary Lightning connector, which was first introduced in 2012.